The Daily Worker Newspaper, May 17, 1924, Page 6

OMEDAY a Marxist must write the life of James Connolly. We shall never get a true appreciation of Connolly’s place in Irish History and the revolutionary Socialist movement of Britain and America until someone, armed with the guiding philosophy of his life, has turned it upon his work and appraised his thoughts and ac- tions accordingly. Desmond Ryan has brought together ‘a record of facts, opinions, and recollections of James Connolly” which will be exceedingly helpful to whoever undertakes the work, but insofar as he attempts to place Connolly, he enters into the same partisan claims which he con- demns in others. “Qne inclines upon the whole” he says, “to define his probable attitude as that of the offi- cial Irish Labor Party,” begins an argument to justify his claim, and suddenly drops it as, “perhaps, a pro- fitless conjecture.” I doubt this, The controversy and speculation have a significance, which, if properly appre- ciated, would do much to indicate the right line of approach to an under- standing of Connolly. Why the rival claims for the soul of Connolly? Why the quotation and counter quotation to justify the sup- port or non-support of action? Why still move Connolly’s own dying ex- clamation, “The Socialists will never understand why.I am here. Does not the answer lie in the fact that Connolly is among the few great fig- ures of the international working class movement which belong to the transition from the epoch of imperial- ist. expansion to the epoch of social revolution, that he felt himself sur- rounded by reformism, narrow nation- alism, doctrinaire Socialism, none of which had been brought face to face with the task of revolution? -I think McManus struck the key to the situ- ation when he observed that Connolly was “the one Socialist that he had ever met who judged every public situation or political crisis with an eye upon revolutionary possibilities.” Where were the others to be found at that time? Certainly we do not find them in the British Isles, nor Amer- ica. We are compelied to turn our eyes eastwards and bring him into alignment with the small Bolshevik group led by Lenin. Desmond Ryan says, “Broadly speaking, James Con- nolly must be classified as a Workers’ Republican and Communist. The doc- trines and methods that the Russian Revolution has since familiarized, were his. He would certainly have been at one with Lenin in destruc- tion and construction alike.” Ryan is right in this, but the trouble is that Ryan himself does not under- stand Leninism and consequently, cannot apply it to the understanding of Connolly. He does not understand the great changes that were coming in the ranks of Marxists, the cleay- age that was imminent when those who had been transforming Marxism into an apology for reformism were to be separated from those who grasp- ed Marxism as the philosophy of re- volution. Nor does he understand the difference between those who marched with Lenin under the banner of Communism and those who under the leadership of De Leon, most of whom at least kept much of their revolution- ary powdering and saved themselves in the hour of International Crisis from becoming the abject creatures of imperialism, such as Kautzky, Van- dervelde, and reformists of the Sec- ond International. He writes with a mind which seems to be a long way back amidst the old controversies be- tween nationalism and international- ism, industrial unionism and the bal- lot box, talking about peaceful per- iods and war periods. And yet these are only incidentals to an apprecia- tion of Connolly's position. Connolly’s place in history is among the heralds of a new epoch and he must be placed and understood accordingly. Ryan vividly sketches his struggles. Born in Ulster in the same year as Lenin, “Connolly was ‘dragged up’ like most proletarian boys ... Of his parents we know little beyond the JAMES CONNOLLY - fact that the father was a laborer... In 1880 Connolly’s family became ex- iles and arrived in Edinburgh where his father obtained work as a cor- poration dustman. James became a printer’s devil Tn the office of the lo- cal “Evening News.” He was then under legal age, but his employer for a year defeated the law .. .” Then the sack. “But he was lucky enough to find work soon afterwards in a bakery... later. . in a mosaic tiling factory. . .. The company of his uncle, an old Fenian, kept vivid in-his memory the glamour and agony of the national struggle. Mitchell too, he read, and much Irish history. Brooding, intense, silent, outwardly cold and inwardly aflamé, a spirit of adventure called him to new scenes. Leaving Edinburgh at eight- een Connolly was in turn tramp, navvy and peddler, spending a roving and eventful life in different parts of Brit- tain. He was married in Perth at the age of twenty-one. An accident to his father recalled him to Edin- burgh. His parent was permanently disabled and James Connolly took up his work as dustman in the cleansing department of the corporation .. . But many tomes of ancient and mod- ern history had he handled, the revo- lutionary phases of Irish history in particular. . . Marx, Engels . . .Asso- ciation with British Socialists, Mor- ris, Hyndman, Leslie ... Then to Dublin in 1896 as Socialist agiator and to start the Irish Socialist Re- . two years: publican Party and edit its organ, “The Workers’ Republic.” Revolt against the Boer war, Anti-Jubilee Empire Demonstration . . . writing “Labor in Irish History” . . . represen- tative of the Irish S. P. at the In- ternational Social Congress, in 1900. In at the split of the S. D. F. in 1903, the formation of the Socialist Labor Party in line with De Leon, later in the year he departed for America. Back again in 1910. The organization of the I. T. W. U.... The great in- dustrial revolt of 1913. The final mar- tyrdom after Easter Weék, 1916.” Here was no complacent trade un- ion leader, but a working class war- rior with heart aflame. What could be the use of talking about the phi- losophy of gradualism to this man steeped in revolutionary lore and com- pelled to do battle at every step. Once the goal of social revolution becomes his consuming aim and he has grasp- ed the Marxist method of readng his- tory, his evolution towards Leninism becomes a certainty as the years sweep us onward towards the great crisis of 1914. His divergence from the Kautskys in the revolutionary purpose. They had no revolutionary purpose. but turned Marxism into a fatalism which saw Socialism emerg- ing thra the gradual transformation of capitalism. What to them was a paralysing blow was to Connolly the great opportunity. Ryan’s account of the effect of the Imperialist War on Connolly reads like Zinoviev’s ac- THE WORKERS’ FLAG Unfurl our banner to the breeze On mountain heights and distant seas; Where the poor are trodden down In the country and the town; Where the children toil all day, Robbed of sunshine and of play; Where our sisters earn their bread In work from which all joy has fled; Where our brothers give their life For masters’ gain, in bloody strife. It shall challenge tyrant wrong; it shall make the weak, the strong; {t shall clasp in brotherhood Men of every race and blood. “Tis the flag whose gleaming red Strikes the workers’ foes with dread; "Tis our flag, we workers, here; Rise and greet it with a cheer. James H. Dolsen. An Italian Communist Daily By Antonio Presi. battle initiated by the Italian Federation for an Italian Commun- ist daily in America is near its tri- imph. It was a hard, formidable bat- tle. We were like a little group of sail- ors fighting in a terrible storm at sea. A desperate fight. We possessed only the indomitable factors in the organized labor move ment of this country today. And when we look over this great army of more than 3,500,000 workers speaking our language, without a daily paper, without any labor insti- tution, we know how great was the damage done by this gang of dema- gogues dressed up in the regalia of “proletarian saviors.” It is for this reason that our Federation decided to determination to arrive at the goal, to |Concentrate its main forces to achieve give to the glorious and immortal |*he realization of a daily paper, a Communist International a new|P@Per which can reach the toiling fighting flag, a new impregnable |™2SSes and teach them the Commun- trench defended by a few ardent Com- munist soldiers. Only a few months ago our “Alba Nuova” started to come out every ist principles, give them an ideal to defend, to propagate, to realize. Tomorrow we know what will be the result of the propaganda for the week, The atmosphere which sur-jdaily paper. We know that thous- rounded us was full of antagonism,|ands of working men and working- hatred, aversion, But we never cared,|women will understand their duty in The Communist soldiers cannot fear|the great field of the class struggle. ts enemies; we know them very Well.| Our paper will be a great weapon portunists, reformists so-called, |against the Fascist movement, it will libertarians of the Makhno type, in-|gle in this country among the Italian be the center of the anti-Fascist strug-|working class. And besides that it dustrialists, all of them with their|will be a great help to the American publications, launched a relentless of- fensive against the principle which we stood for. But we never shrank be- fore the rattle snake. We remained immovable, like a rock of granite. We followed our course. _ _ Today. the sympathies of the Italian workers are with us, the victory of establishing a daily paper shows that we were right, Those who assail us belong to the category of the impo- tent, the pusillanimous, good only to fight against the workers’ cause rath- er than the capitalist regime. For more than a quarter of a century that element, because of its sectarian and narrow mind in the class struggle, has continuously divided the workers into various factions. Not in tho name of a party, an ideal, a principle, but for their own personal ambition. And for this only reason the Italian werking class in America, numerous as it is, is not yet one of the main workers because it will fight to dis- sipate racial and national hatred be- tween the workers of the world, so as to eliminate the ignominous national- istic teachings so dangerous to the working class interests. Only the en- emies of the workers, Americans or Italians, can tremble before this new step made by the workers toward their emancipation; but the working class all over the world can sing the hymn of joy in this movement, be- cause it shows that Fascism cannot succeed in crushing the hope for a new day of the workers of Italy. Yes, the publication of “Il Lavora- tor” is the beginning of the new and triumphant resurrection of the Italian proletariat, The day will come when we will celebrate the downfall of Mussolini and his pretorian army to sive birth to the Italian Soviet Repub- lic. It is inevitable. The Italian pro- at is still marching, By J. T. MURPHY count of its effect upon Lenin. “His whole being cried out against it and where Lenin called for the transfor- mation of the Imperial War into the Uivil War of the Classes, Connonly called the subject nation of Ireland to war upon the Empire. “We shall continue in season and out of season to teach that ‘the far- flung battle line of England is weak- est at the point nearest its heart, that Ireland is in that position of tactical advantage that a defeat of England in India, Egypt, the Balkans, or Flan- ders, would not be so dangerous to the British Empire as conflict of arm- ed forces in Ireland, that the time for Ireland's battie is now, the place for Ireland’s Battle is Here.” Both watchwords were fundamen- tally sound in relation to the war on Imperialism. Both men with tire- less energy pursued their tasks, but there is a difference in the means of operation. Both agreed in that they must call into operation the sum to- tal of the forces they could muster against the imperialist, but one had a highly developed party as an instru- ment to gather the forces and main- tain the proletarian hegemony, the other had no such revoiutionary par- ty understandisig the role of the pro- letariat in a predominantly agricul- tural country. Lenin was farther a- head than Connolly and with the Bol- shevik Party not only led the work- ers as the vanguard of the mighty re- volutionary movement of workers and peasants, but crystalized and express- ed the experience that the world should see and hear and read and un- derstand. Connolly had not such a party. He appealed to the I. T. W. U., the citizen army. He led his re- eruits to the very forefront of the national struggle and by these acts stamped upon the pages of Irish his- tory the role of the proletariat of Ire- land in its war of liberation. But, al- tho he created the impression that he would not hesitate to turn against seme of his colleagues in the national war if they would not proceed to car- ry out the socialist measures for which he fought, I do not find any clear defining of the role of the prole- tariat or his aims as that of the dic- tatorship of the proletariat or what part a revolutionary party must take in relation thereto. His deeds pro- claim the answer and one feels con- vinced that had Connolly not been murdered by the Asquith-Henderson combination and had he lived to see the Russian Revolution and the emer- gence of the Communist Internation- al, he would have completed his writ- ings in full accord with the declara- tions of the Communist International. It is this incompleteness which gives rise to the claims of. partisans. Ryan speaks of his departure from “his original Marxism” when in reali- ty he was manifesting a firmer grip of its esesntials in contrast to the formal expression passing in the name of Marxism whether via Kautsky or De Leon. This was the case on more than the struggle of subject nations. He grasped the essentials of working with the peasantry, and of using the co-operatives whilst the followers of De Leon were concentrating on in- dustrial unionism and the ballot box. He learned his industrial unionism in the industrialized countries of Eng- land and America, but he had to ap- ply his philosophy in an essentially agricultural country dominated by a powerful nationalist spirit because of its subjection to England. Fearlessly he faced these problems which did not press upon the De Leonists Britain and America and as he pled with them he felt the big ences that lay between him old associates. That is why claimed, “The socialists will not erap- differ- and led the way into the epoch of social revoiution —J. TY. Mur- phy. j